Jesse was the only member of the family who was not what a later author would describe as that curious sub-race, the redheads. His brown hair was naturally unruly, despite his best attempts to tame it. When he was graduating from Junior High, he attended a "mixer." Trying to get the upper hand on his hair, he tried to use what he thought was a hair cream designed to straighten his hair. It turned out instead to be cod liver oil. Learning of his mistake, Jesse tried to scrub the vile smelly stuff from his hair, though a faint aroma remained despite his best efforts. He attended the mixer, but it was not one of the high points in his social life.

Jesse was not the only one with unruly hair. Rose had kinky, Irish hair and her name was true to the color of her hair. She used an iron waffle to try to straighten it and had better success than Jesse's cod liver oil experiment.